"Pippi Longstocking" by Astrid Lindgren

I read this book right after reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and boy was that a contrast.

(Actually, I just noticed that on the surface, they do have a few similarities. Namely that both books are about kids who live alone, whose mothers are dead, and whose fathers are alive -- |well, not for the whole book in Huckleberry Finn's case| -- but not here. That does not change the fact that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a serious anti-slavery novel, and Pippi Longstocking is a cheerful children's book.)

One cannot help but smile at the adventures and shenanigans of this book. It has no pretentions of seriousness, and it's just fun to read about Pippi's horse who lives on the balcony and her chest of gold pieces.

My favorite part is probably the part with the robbers trying to break into Villa Villekula. 'Tis hilarious, especially how utterly unprepared the robbers are for Pippi Longstocking being Pippi Longstocking.

This review is part of my first completed quest.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E, probably.

4 stars.

    "Hurray!" said Pippi. "This must be my lucky day too! Policemen are the very best things I know. Next to rhubarb pudding."

    Page 39.

(Endnote: Despite all my knowledge of mathematics, I have yet to master pluttifikation.)

"Stuart Little" by E. B. White

Stuart Little is the second son of a perfectly normal American family. He is inexplicably also a mouse.

This book is an odd one. I should probably have put off reading the first few chapters until such time as I wasn't extremely tired, because it didn't make much sense to me. And it meant I couldn't tell whether later chapters were also not making much sense to me because they just didn't, or because my experience with the book had been colored by first reading it when I was extremely tired.

That said, I shall now attempt to provide a summary of the plot.

Stuart Little is, for no discernable reason, a mouse. He lives with his otherwise normal human family, who are oddly fine with the fact that he's randomly a mouse. He wins a model sailboat race for a guy by making his model sailboat actually have someone sailing it. He also meets a bird named Margalo, who then flees when the family cat (who has somehow never eaten Stuart) plots to murder her. Stuart likes Margalo, so he goes on an Epic Quest in a tiny car to find her.

Stuart |does not manage to find Margalo| by the end of the book. Slightly |anticlimactic|, that, but I'm honestly fine with it, because if |we had gone until he found her|, the book would have to have been several times as long.

I hadn't read this before, and thus was not expecting Stuart to act so much like a grown-up. Or to be a supposed-to-have-been-a-human-but-is-actually-a-mouse-for-some-reason; I thought he was just a normal mouse. Really, I was expecting this to be more like The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

[EDIT: This review is part of my first completed quest.]

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E, probably.

3 stars.

(Endnote: Oddly enough, hardly anybody is like "What the heck, is that a talking mouse???" when Stuart shows up. I guess this is just a Thing That Happens in this universe?)

"The Hundred Dresses" by Eleanor Estes

I first read The Hundred Dresses several years ago, for school. I didn't enjoy it then. Oh, I had nothing against it, it was just that A) I wasn't really interested, and B) I was reading it for school but wasn't interested so I went through it rather faster than I might otherwise have. This time around, I was reading it of my own volition, and I liked it much better.

Right. The plot. The Hundred Dresses is about a girl named Wanda Petronski, who insists that she has a hundred dresses. This despite the fact that she quite obviously does not, because she wears the same one to school every day and would surely wear some of the others if they actually existed. The other girls at her school make fun of her for this, because... uh... nobody's actually sure why. Including me. Kids are mean, I guess.

I suspect, but cannot prove, that Wanda is neurodivergent somehow. I also don't know much about neurodivergence, so I could be wrong.

At its core, this is a book about bullying. And it's deep enough and good enough to make me write sentences like "At its core, this is a book about bullying," which should probably tell you something. But anyway, it's also one of the best books on that subject I've ever read. (Admittedly, that's a bit of a low bar, because I haven't read a lot of those; however, as I believe I've said before, just because the bar was low doesn't mean you didn't jump high.)

The art in this is good. It adds to the story, and it fits very well with the general tone. 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E. There's nothing in here that younger kids couldn't handle.

4 stars. Like I said, I liked it better this time.

(Endnote: This is where I'd usually make some kind of joke, but that feels rather too much like joining in the "make fun of Wanda Petronski for saying she has a hundred dresses" game. So I shall refrain.)

"Where the Mountain Meets the Moon" by Grace Lin

Remember how I complained a bit about Tikki Tikki Tembo? This book is like that book if it had some actual depth. And was about a hundred times as long. And also had an entirely different plot. So really they're just both set in ancient China and told like folktales.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is about a girl named Minli, who probably isn't twelve. She and her parents are literally dirt poor, so she embarks upon an Epic Quest to find the Old Man of the Moon and ask him how to change their fortune. She meets various other characters along the way, including a dragon, who's featured on the front cover.

There's also a subplot slash backstory involving a power-hungry magistrate who eventually became a power-mad magistrate, then died |and turned into an evil supernatural tiger|. That backplot was woven into the story with much better execution than the Saga of Phoebe Winterbottom and the Lunatic who Wasn't was in Walk Two Moons. It was almost like this book had one plot that's just kind of tangled and complicated and that gets revealed in a long and slightly fragmented way, rather than two plots that are almost entirely divorced from each other.

I should probably include here the same disclaimer that I did in Tikki Tikki Tembo's review, that being that I don't actually know very much about ancient Chinese culture. So I'm probably not a very good judge of how accurate this is to actual Chinese folktales. However, this does seem pretty similar to the other ones I've read.

[EDIT: Forgot to mention that this review is part of my first completed quest.] 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E. There's a scary bit with |the evil supernatural tiger|, but I think kids would be able to handle that.

4 stars.

(Endnote: There are actually a lot of mountains on the moon. This book is about none of them.)

"Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" by Judy Blume

I did not expect to like this book. Turns out, I don't like this book, so my expectations were correct. And that is entirely due to:

"Look for the other books about Peter, Sheila, and the irrepressible Fudge!"

     -the back cover

"Fudge should be repressed."

     -me to my family midway through reading this

Fudge is the protagonist's incredibly annoying younger brother. He is, as you may have guessed, incredibly annoying. So kudos to Judy Blume for making him authentically awful, but at the same time, he's so awful that he ruins pretty much the entire book for me. Much like he ruins pretty much the entire book for his older brother, come to think of it.

Really, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing is a cautionary tale on how toddlers (in general) will be as awful as they can get away with, and if you parent your toddler wrong (i.e. letting them get away with things) the toddler will be awful. If you ever find anyone who doesn't believe in original sin, just point them at a small child who's been parented badly (i.e. allowed to get away with things).

But hey, fourth graders aren't twelve! So there's that, at least.

Note: To be clear, I have nothing against twelve-year-olds. It's just that they comprise approximately 96% of all middle-grade fiction protagonists, so I'm kind of tired of reading about them.

I expected to dislike this, because I expected it to be a ten-year-old girl having school drama. Instead I disliked it because it was a nine-year-old boy having family drama with his incredibly annoying younger brother. I've never had an incredibly annoying younger brother, but I'm glad of that fact and have no desire to experience such a sibling vicariously.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for Fudge.

2 stars. Which rating it only manages because I generally reserve one-star ratings for things like "wildly inappropriate content" or "portraying Satan as a good guy".

(Endnote: I'm starting a petition to put Fudge in a timeout and ignore him until he behaves.)

Mini-Reviews 18: Wheels on a Big Rig

Callings for Life: God's Plan, Your Purpose by Jeffrey Leininger

This book takes a hundred and fifty-four pages to say something that I can pretty comprehensively sum up in three sentences: "God probably hasn't called you to do something grand and epic, so you should focus on where God has put you now rather than the grand and epic thing you think God wants you to do. Having a normal life is not bad, and you should value it. God intends you to do a lot of small things rather than one really huge thing."

As you may have suspected, I was not enthralled. Oh, it's a lovely exploration of the doctrine of vocation, I just couldn't get into it because A) I fully grasped the point from reading the back cover, and B) I already understand the doctrine of vocation. I read nonfiction to learn things, and I honestly don't learn much from a book that repeatedly tells me something I already know for 154 pages.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for people dying in some of the examples it gives. It would make a supremely boring videogame.

3 stars. It's not a bad book, it's just also not the right one for me.

Tags for this one: 3-star, Christian nonfiction, nonfiction, rated E10+

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams 

This book is quite short. Also slightly sad. Though not as sad as I was expecting, given that I expected |the titular rabbit to die outright, and he only sort of dies|. Also there's a fairy involved. 

I had to look up what velveteen was, because I didn't actually know. It's apparently "velvet but instead of making it velvety by cutting the vertical threads, you make it velvety by cutting the horizontal threads." Or something of that sort.

This review is part of my first completed quest.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for being sad.

3 stars. It somehow manages to be both slightly depressing and slightly sappy.

Tags for this one: 3-star, rated E10+

Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater

This book is less short than The Velveteen Rabbit is, but I have similarly little to say about it. Hence this being a mini-review.

The plot of this is not terribly believable, but that's part of its charm.

This review is also part of my first completed quest.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E.

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, junior fiction, rated E

(Endnote: And they're rollin' rollin' rollin', rollin' rollin' rollin)

Mini-Reviews 17: Again

Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers

My mom reviewed this, here. Go there for some actual thoughts on the book.

I honestly wouldn't have done even this utter placeholder of a mini-review normally. However, this (sad excuse for a) review is part of my first completed quest.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+.

3 stars.

Tags for this one: 3-star, classics, junior fiction, magical realism, rated E10+

Quaint Creatures by Andrew D. Meredith

This is a book about a veterinarian in what's basically a D&D world. It's quite fun and I wish it were a series so I could read more of it.

I think it balances the slice-of-life aspect with the plot quite well. That, however, is my personal opinion; other people might think it needs more plot or more slice-of-life.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for fantasy violence. It could be a reasonably good videogame; I'd play it.

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, fantasy, rated E10+, slice-of-life

The Strange and Deadly Portraits of Bryony Gray by E. Latimer

This book involves (posthumously) Dorian Gray, of The Picture of Dorian Gray fame. That would be a spoiler, but come on, the book's about spooky magic paintings and the protagonist's last name is Gray.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for scary scenes and {T15+ implied past homosexuality, thanks to the subject matter involving Oscar Wilde. It's pretty veiled, and if you didn't know about Wilde you probably wouldn't notice it, but it's there and it bugged me. It was also kind of sprung on you near the end, so I'd already read most of the book before I noticed.}

1 star. Honestly I probably should have quit reading it, but I wanted to know how it ended. It's rather a shame about the above-mentioned redactedness, because Bryony herself could have been quite a compelling protagonist.

Tags for this one: 1-star, magical realism, rated T15+

(Endnote: Zac Efron is in none of these books.)

"My Father's Dragon" by Ruth Stiles Gannett

This review is part of my first completed quest.

Our protagonist, the hilariously named Elmer Elevator, meets a talking cat who tells him about this uncharted jungle island with an abused dragon on it. Elmer Elevator (who's also the narrator's father) has always wanted to fly on an airplane, but he can't afford an airplane, so he goes off to rescue the dragon so they can have adventures together.

This book is seemingly designed to be read out loud to a small child. It has that sort of vibe. It's written in first person, but not from Elmer Elevator's perspective; the narrator isn't ever really described, presumably so it can be assumed to be whoever's reading it out loud.

The cat is the single most questgivery questgiver I've seen in a book in a long time. It hits pretty much all of the fairy-tale fairy questperson beats:

-it's a downtrodden person that most people just ignore (usually a beggar in fairy tales, a stray cat in this)

-the main character shares his food with it (usually bread or something in fairy tales, a saucer of milk in this)

-it parts ways with the main character near the beginning, but tells him about a journey he could go on (your various fairy tale quests, or this book's dragon rescue)

-it gives the main character a bunch of very specific advice and things that turn out to be exactly what he needs in order to succeed (usually advice and a magic item or two in fairy tales, the rather random but weirdly useful things it tells Elmer Elevator to pack in this)

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E. Especially if you're a mom reading this out loud to your kid and can talk things through with them.

3 stars. It's not bad or anything, it just... didn't catch my attention.

(Endnote: My IRL father is unfortunately--or fortunately, depending on your perspective--not named Elmer Elevator, so I guess he doesn't have a dragon.)

"Cleopatra In Space" by Mike Maihack

This series was made known to me by one of my classmates in a literature class, who wrote one of her essays on the first book. (Yes, it's the same literature class for which I've been doing essays on things like A Tale of Two Cities and All Quiet on the Western Front. There aren't any actual rules about how highbrow your essay subjects have to be, I just feel silly doing literary analysis on unserious things.)

Anyway, on to the series! I'm not going to bother blacking out the spoilers; ye be warned. There's ending spoilers in the book 6 review, so if you don't want to know how it ends, maybe don't read that one.

Book One: Target Practice 

Fifteen-year-old Cleopatra VIII Philopator (the only Cleopatra most people ever know about) gets isekai'd into the future when she finds a mysterious tablet, leaving her friend Gozi behind. Despite this being middle-grade fiction, she isn't twelve, so I afford the author some extra points for that.

 

Could have done without the "you're in the future... but you still have to go to school" bit, but it does serve to introduce some characters who'll be important later (namely her history professor, Khensu the cat, as well as her classmates Brian, Zaid, and Akila). Also, apparently she's the prophesied "person who will save us from the evil overlord Xaius Octavian".

 

She gets sent on a training mission to retrieve a magic sword, which will be important later.

Book Two: The Thief and the Sword

Remember how I told you that magic sword would be important later? A guy steals it in this one and delivers it to Xaius Octavian. Said guy turns out to be named Antony, so we all know where this will go. Eventually. They spend a lot of time trying to kill each other first.

 

Did I mention the future world Cleopatra is now in (called the Nile Galaxy) is ruled by a pharaoh, and below her, a bunch of cats? I love the cats. They're awesome. [EDIT: Fixed a there/their/they're mistake.]

 

Also, it turns out the magic sword wasn't actually a real magic sword. Xaius Octavian breaks it in half when he finally receives it at the end of this one. (According to Wikipedia's summary it's actually also the same sword Cleopatra and Gozi found at the very beginning of book 1 right before Cleopatra gets isekai'd. I don't remember that bit at all.)

Book Three: Secret of the Time Tablets

In which Cleopatra acquires a fedora, only to lose it again before the next book starts. Also in which our heroes (Cleopatra, Zaid, Brian, Akila, and Khensu) travel to the planet Hykosis, a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Antony is also here, as is a bartender named Fod Franze who Cleopatra ticks off. He'll be mildly important later.

 

This is where the permanent consequences start to set in, courtesy of Xaius Octavian finally confronting our heroes. Cleopatra develops mysterious pink energy powers. Akila loses an arm. Zaid takes a laser from Xaius Octavian (who, by the way, can shoot lasers) and sort of disintegrates.

 

Y'know how that sword would be important later? It still is. Xaius Octavian has the real one, which has kept him alive for... I think several millenia. He's also actually her friend Gozi, who's been kept alive for I think several millenia by the magic sword. And is very mad at her. And can shoot lasers.

 

Book Four: The Golden Lion

In which Antony and Cleopatra (yes, I know) traverse the ice planet of Hoth Cada'Duun to try to find the Golden Lion, which is not an actual lion. It's a sort of plasma thing, which apparently renders the area around it habitable no matter what said area used to be like. On the ice planet, it manifests as a village of people who talk in math; they're apparently total jokesters to anyone who can understand their math, which Cleopatra doesn't.

 

The Cleo-Antony romance starts happening. Also, Xaius Octavian is revealed to have a mysterious patron who manifests as a giant, vaguely humanoid patch of darkness with glowing red eyes, and Cleopatra's pink energy is revealed to be able to heal her.

 

Cleopatra also gets a pet in this one: Mihos the snow otter. He's adorable but doesn't do much other than "be adorable". He won't even be important later. Plus Akila has a robot arm that can shoot lasers; that will be important later.

Book Five: Fallen Empires

The Empire Strikes Back (Cleopatra in Space edition). Also known as, everything goes to heck.

 

The book opens with a flashback of Gozi/Octavian's tragic backstory: he got imprisoned for losing Cleopatra. Then Egypt was destroyed by space pirates. Gozi activated the self-destruct on the space pirate ships in retaliation, but survived thanks to the immortality-granting sword. He was rescued by aliens who gave him prosthetic tentacle legs; he had a normal happy life with them, but then those aliens were attacked by different space pirates, and he was the only survivor.

 

Also Administrant Khepra, one of the cat council, is secretly a traitor working for Octavian. And is Khensu's mom. Plus we learn what Xaius Octavian wanted the plasma for: he made a budget Death Star. Or several.

Book Six: Queen of the Nile

[ENDING SPOILERS IN THIS ONE]

Cleo has acquired a tan over the course of the series. Cleo has also acquired depression over the course of the series. It's understandable, given all the destruction Xaius Octavian has been wreaking and the fact that she's been stuck in the future for at least a year and a half.

 

We get some background on Octavian's mysterious patron: it's Anubis, who went mad with power/grief and tried to destroy everything. The rest of the Egyptian pantheon stopped him, sort of. It takes the combined power of Cleo's pink magic and Pharaoh Yosira's pink magic (Pharaoh Yosira is apparently a distant descendant of Cleo herself, who gets sent back to the past near the end) to get rid of him.

 

Fod Franze shows back up and is mildly important. He causes some problems and tries to get Xaius Octavian to pay him for doing so, then gets obliterated by a laser from Octavian.

 

All things considered, I think this series ended pretty well.

Overall Notes

Don't be like Kittens and start on book 2. It didn't make much sense to her.

 

Cleopatra in Space is a fun series, and not one I'd have qualms about recommending to kids. If you want a promotional quote from me, use that.

 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for sequences of stylized sci-fi violence. Nothing untoward. It would probably be a pretty good videogame in the right hands (something action-adventure-y).

 

4 stars. It's pretty similar to Five Worlds, though not quite on that level. The art is good, and as I've mentioned before, art quality is an important factor in my enjoyment of a graphic novel.

Favorite lines:

    Fod Franze: NO ONE SHOOTS FOD FRANZE'S HAT!!

    Cleopatra: Well, I just did so... not true?

    Akila (in background): Yeah. I'm gonna hide.

    Book 3 pages 44-45.

(Endnote: There seems to have been a short-lived TV show of this. It apparently made some pretty weird changes and looked absolutely nothing like the original, so I'm in no hurry to seek it out.)

Mini-Reviews 10: On Top Of Some Covers, All Covered With Snow

Dragon Kingdom of Wrenly: The Coldfire Curse by Jordan Quinn (graphic novel art by Ornella Greco)

This is rather below my general reading level. Let's just leave it at that. It's about dragons and a curse that's making it be winter (and, surprisingly, isn't the White Witch's fault).

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for cartoon violence, or possibly on the high side of E.

3 stars. It isn't bad, it's just that I would have loved it if I was about ten, and (spoiler alert) I'm not ten.

Tags for this one: 3-star, adventure, dragons, fantasy, junior fiction, manga/graphic novel, rated E10+

Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

"This is a Hansel and Gretel retelling." You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? But you're actually wrong. It's the Snow Queen.

Now, granted, the title would make a lot more sense if it were a modern-day Hansel and Gretel retelling. But, as I said in the last paragraph, it's actually a modern-day Snow Queen retelling. With a few bits of some other Hans Christian Andersen fairytales thrown in; there's that one about the red dancing shoes, the little match-girl shows up (but, unfortunately, sans |the Death of the Discworld to help|), and there's possibly some Little Red Riding Hood in there as well.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for dangerous bits and violence (among other things, the plot gets kicked off by the main character's best friend getting a shard of glass in his eye). Straightforward enough to be a sort of RPG.

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, adventure, fairy tale retelling, magical realism, modern setting, rated E10+

Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie

Apparently this one was written because one of Agatha Christie's nephews (I think) complained that all her murder mysteries were too clean and bloodless, so she wrote this one specifically for him.

 

Yes, it was still Christmastime when I read this.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for mmmuuuuurrrder and discussions of marital infidelity. It's not gory or anything.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    Colonel Johnson, Chief Constable of Middleshire, might be of the opinion that nothing could beat a wood fire, but Hercule Poirot was of the opinion that central heating could and did every time.

    Page 84.

Tags for this one: 4-star, mystery, rated T

(Endnote: The title for this post was originally going to be "Mini-Reviews 10: 10.0x10^0" before I realized that all three of the books I'm reviewing here have snow on the cover.)

Mini-Reviews 9: Fantastic Number 9

deadly ... pink by Vivian Vande Velde

In which we've developed VR that interfaces with your brain. It starts to be unsafe after playing it for eight hours straight, which is why you get kicked out after thirty minutes. Except if you're an admin and can make it not do that, in which case you're at risk of brain damage and your sister has to come talk you out of staying in the game.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for violence and some other miscellaneous stuff.

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, modern setting, rated E10+, science fiction

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

This was good until it was abruptly depressing. Did Ray Bradbury ever write anything that didn't have dystopia and/or |nuclear war| somewhere in it?

Much of the science in this is a bit dated (humans can't survive without a spacesuit on Mars, and crewed Mars rockets aren't exactly easy to build) but it's still a good read.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for violence and (I think) some bad language. It's too disjointed to make one cohesive narrative, though you could do something like release each mini-story as its own chapter or DLC for the main game. 

3 stars. The ending was too melancholy for my taste.

Tags for this one: 3-star, rated T, science fiction, space

Legend of the Ghost Dog by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel

This one would have been good if it had played the scary straight. It ought to have been creepypasta material instead of sadpasta material. But instead of a ghost dog that's insane and attacking people, we get a ghost dog that's trying to lead people to the resting place of a kid who got lost looking for it and froze to death. I'd have spoiler tagged that, but I saw it coming by like chapter 3, so why bother.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for dangerous situations (characters get stuck in a blizzard). It's not even spooky.

2 stars. Just lame.

Tags for this one: 2-star, horror [at least I think it was supposed to be], junior fiction, lame, modern setting, rated E10+

(Endnote: It's been a while since I did one of these, hasn't it.)

"Spooksville: The Cold People" by Christopher Pike

I never thought I'd find any children's light horror series that's lamer than Creepover, but here we are. At least Creepover's ghostwriters were actually, y'know, ghostwriters and had some grasp of how to write. Christopher Pike doesn't seem to, and his prose is so bad that I actually DNF'd the book.

Creepover is so bad it's kind of funny how bad it is. Spooksville went out the other end of that and is so bad it's just bad. As you know, Bob, using the "As you know, Bob" technique to introduce backstory or remind readers of events from previous books is generally a terrible idea. There are probably more quibbles I could have had with it had I read past the first chapter or so. 

I picked this up based on the cover blurb, and was not very disappointed. If someone wants to write one that has roughly the same plot but doesn't have Christopher Pike writing, go ahead, and I'll give you an imaginary box of donuts and some fake internet points.

Right before I DNF'd this, the characters decide to melt one of the giant ice cubes with spooky people inside. Never mind that A) they do this by building a fire without any regard for fire safety, B) I haven't managed to do the math for it (the internet is unhelpful) but that's about 56 cubic feet of ice they're melting with a single campfire so it would take eons, and C) there's a spooky person trapped in the ice, and freeing him (by melting the ice) would probably be a bad idea because then he would be free to be all spooky.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: Insufficient data for meaningful answer, since (again) I didn't read past the first chapter because I couldn't handle Christopher Pike's awful writing any longer.

1 star, unless the writing picked up drastically after the first chapter or so.

(Endnote: "The Cold People" is at once a title evocative of the bad prose in this book and a title that, on something better than this, would highlight a fairy-tale-gone-wrong aspect of the story. I mean, maybe it's supposed to do that for this too, but if so, it didn't work.)

"Edge of Extinction: The Ark Plan" by Laura Martin

What if this wasn't Jurassic Park? 

What if we resurrected dinosaurs anyway?

What if dinosaurs were actually super huge?

What if they killed almost everyone when they escaped captivity?

What if dinosaurs were now the dominant species?

What if everyone lived underground now?

What if your leaders were secretly evil?

 

What if you left the underground city?

 

What if you were terrible at surviving aboveground?

 

What if some people actually didn't live underground?

 

What if your former leaders wanted to recapture you?

What if you eluded them?

What if this were a videogame? What if I rated it E10+ for violence?

What if I gave this book 4 stars?

(What if I had an endnote? What if I wrote this entire post in what-ifs?)

"Greenglass House" by Kate Milford

This book was said to resemble Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game. It does, kind of, in that everyone has their own story. There's an overarching plot to Greenglass House, but it spins lots of little sidetracks too. Aside from Milo (the main character) and his parents, nobody is who they seem to be. Well, there are a couple of minor characters who don't really have any secrets, because they're minor characters. But everyone else? Nope, no one is telling you everything. No one.

 

I'm not going to spoil any of the secrets for you. At least two of them surprised me a great deal, especially the one where |haha just kidding I'm sticking to my word|.

Milo and Meddy (the daughter of one of those sans-secret characters) try to figure out the mysteries. While doing this, they come up with characters for a roleplaying game, Odd Trails, which is clearly supposed to be Dungeons and Dragons but for trademark infringement yada yada. Also, it allows the author to come up with various mechanics and things for Odd Trails that aren't in D&D. Their roleplaying as Negret (Milo's sneaky thief-person character) and Sirin (Meddy's invisible angel-thing character) is fun to read about.

Part of my enjoyment of this book stems from the fact that I think I'd have gotten along fairly well with Meddy. That, or terribly; we're too similar to just kind of peripherally know each other. Milo is too quiet for me, in my old age, to interact much with.

 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: Um... E10+ for some violence (someone |uses a gun to shoot at a character|, but misses.) Something like this, yes.

And it gets 4 stars. It was fun, and I liked it, but it's not a book I'd want to buy and reread a lot. (I should really read some worse books so I don't rate everything four stars all the time.)

Favorite lines:

    [The footsteps] had been too noisy for someone who knew how to move silently, but not noisy enough for someone coming up without caring about sounds they were making at all. Therefore, the person who'd arrived on the fifth floor was trying to be quiet, and wasn't doing it very well.

    Page 76.

    The Moonlighter's Knack, he thought triumphantly: you can steal any object protected by anything that opens with a key or combination, and also anything protected by hotel toiletries.

    Page 156.

(Endnote: I think this is the first book I've reviewed on here since the 2021 revamp whose author's last name starts with M.)

"No Passengers Beyond This Point" by Gennifer Choldenko

The basic premise of this book is one which I've run into a couple times before: kids moving to a new town, which turns out to be supernatural somehow. The town in this one, Falling Bird, is... well, kind of like Aldermere, but bigger and higher-tech and also less nice.

As in, it's one of those magical towns that don't want to let you leave. So, naturally, the characters spend almost the entire book trying to leave. They landed in Falling Bird while trying to fly to Fort Baker, Colorado, to go live with their uncle; this will be important later.

Because y'know Falling Bird? It's the entrance to |the afterlife|. And y'know that plane the main three were on? It ended up |as a fireball over Colorado|.

Also, Mouse (one of the three protagonists) is six years old. She's very smart for her age, but she doesn't just act like someone older; the author made her believable in the less sophisticated way she views the world, her unshakeable faith in her imaginary friend, and her strong opinions on the Solar System.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for scenes of peril and jerkfaces.

If you read this review expecting me to rate No Passengers Beyond This Point 4 stars, you were correct.

(Endnote: The book never actually discusses what's in |the afterlife|. I'm guessing this was in order to avoid offending people, but it was also necessary to avoid giving away The Reveal! too soon.

"Frindle" by Andrew Clements

This isn't a very long book at all, and I don't have much to say about it. My usual "here's the basic plot of this book" is replaced by a meme, and I don't have any staggering insights about the book. If it weren't for my first completed quest (which this review is part of), I probably wouldn't have bothered to review it.

Behold my artistry.

 

The plot of Frindle in one meme.

It's not exactly a deep book, and I'm scraping for things to say about it in order to not make this review a cover image, two paragraphs, and a meme.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E, although parents might not want kids taking after the main character (he's kind of a troublemaker).

Frindle gets 4 stars. It was short, but funny.

(Endnote: I'm not going to start using "frindle" for "pen" anytime soon. There are enough people out there who've read Frindle that I wouldn't be totally unintelligible, but I'd confuse a lot of people. Aside from that, it's just silly.)

"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum

This is an essay I wrote for a literature class. As such, this isn't a normal review, but I will stick a star rating and videogame rating on the end.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

 In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum makes the points that you should always be kind to people you meet, and that preconceived beliefs aren’t always right. His plotting may seem messy at first, but on further consideration it proves to hang together well.

The main character, Dorothy, is unfailingly kind to everyone she meets. In the beginning, Dorothy isn’t in the storm cellar and thus gets carried away by a tornado because she’s making sure Toto is safe; when the Wizard accidentally leaves in the balloon, she isn’t in it because she’s making sure Toto comes with her. Her first major, plot-advancing act upon arriving in the land of Oz is to help a scarecrow down from being stuck on a pole; the scarecrow accompanies her on her journey to the Emerald City, and is instrumental in defeating the Wicked Witch of the West’s servants. The same basic action occurs with the Tin Man; Dorothy oils his joints, freeing another artificial person from immobility induced by their being artificial. Dorothy meets and chastises the Cowardly Lion shortly thereafter; gently reminding people that something they are doing is wrong in order to turn them from that wrong behavior is also kind, though it may not seem so. Dorothy is also kind to the various inhabitant peoples of Oz that she meets, even feeling sad over the Wicked Witches’ deaths.

The author makes the point that preconceived notions aren’t always the case. The Emerald City initially appears great and wondrous, just like the Wizard does. During the reveal of the Wizard not actually being a great wizard, the green glamour of the Emerald City is similarly exposed as false: it’s white, and the green glasses everyone wears make it look green. The glasses are a metaphor for people’s preconceived ideas about things; because they expect the city to be green, they don’t question the glasses making it appear green. Dorothy’s three companions also have ideas about themselves, and are convinced that the Wizard can fix them. The Scarecrow has no actual brain, so he believes he will never be smart; the Tin Man has no actual heart, so he believes he doesn’t have feelings; and the Cowardly Lion believes he’s a coward because he’s scared, not realizing that (as the saying goes) “courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.” In the end, it is revealed that Dorothy could have used the silver shoes to get back to Kansas, but she didn’t know it; this completes the theme of the group having what they need and not realizing it.

The book’s plotting sometimes seems to be going, as it were, all over the place. First, the point of Dorothy’s journey is to get to the Emerald City and ask the Wizard to send her back to Kansas; her companions have their requests to make to the Wizard, as well. When the Wizard sends everyone to defeat the Wicked Witch of the West, both characters and readers feel dissatisfied, like the Wizard’s quest is a useless obstruction. However, had the Wizard simply agreed to everyone’s requests and sent them on their way, the story would have felt unfulfilling, as it would be missing its climax. The reveal of the Wizard as an ordinary man masquerading as powerful also seems like the author throwing readers and characters for another loop, as does the Wizard’s accidental departure without Dorothy in the balloon. Ending the book with Dorothy going back in the balloon would also have felt unfulfilling; the story is brought to its proper conclusion only by the third trip and Glinda’s reveal that the silver shoes could have brought Dorothy home all along, completing the point about people’s ideas of themselves.

In conclusion, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz tells us to be kind to people, and gently reminds us that our predetermined ideas aren’t necessarily true. The storyline seems to be longer than it needs to be, but upon closer inspection each of its loops are necessary for a fulfilling narrative.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E. Young children can handle it.

I'm going to give The Wonderful Wizard of Oz 3 stars. I know it's considered a classic and all, but... I just don't really love it that much.

(Endnote: This review is part of my first completed quest.)